Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing this note in the hopes that you will take my caution seriously and use this pendant wisely. The enclosed vial contains a freshwater pearl, a seashell, and a generous amount of sand, all taken from beaches with confirmed mermaid sightings. The other item in the vial is a small portion of seaglass, swept up from the shore by myself and other women who agreed to take part in the hunt.
Long ago, when I was still a young woman and the world was full of magic, I fell in love with a man who would forever change my life. I became a part of his family, odd as it was, and got to know each one. They had a…strange fear of the sea, despite the fact that they had a house on the steps of the beach. Yet all the young men were to be accompanied by a woman if they were to go out near the water, and no one was allowed outside after nightfall.
I once asked the grandmother why they had a house on the beach if they were all terrified of the water. She told me ‘someone must watch the bay’. I wasn’t sure what she meant. I do now.
On the eve of my wedding night, the old grandmother and my future mother-in-law took me aside, and explained the story of thier family to me. Long ago, thier great-grandfather was a sailor. His ship hit a terrible storm, and he nearly drowned. He was saved, but he did not know by who, and so went on a long search to find the one who saved him. After many years and years, he finally encountered her again, to find that his savior was none other than a mermaid.
But she had been cursed, unable to break through the surface of the water in order to visit or speak. The only thing that made it past the water was a wonderous song. It drove him into the water and he nearly drowned, to be saved by his future wife. He was saved from death on that day, but not the mermaid’s longing.
Somehow, whenever he went near the water, she found him and would call for him. Her eyes would pierce him, her song entice him until he could not resist and was driven into the water, to be continually saved by the woman who loved him. He became haunted by the mermaid, her soft song driving him mad.
In the search to save her husband, the wife discovered that the mermaid’s song was muted when the sailor held to small bits of seaglass. Sand and shells amplified this effect, and when a freshwater pearl was added, it seemed to heal the mind of the sailor. She put this together in a small vial and told him to wear it always, decorating the house with bottles and bottles of the same substances in hopes of warding away the mermaid’s call.
But this wasn’t enough, the old grandmother told me. The mermaid never stopped calling for her lost love, and the song still resonated…with the sailor’s son.
She told me any man born of the sailor’s line — such as my future husband — would be called to the water same as the sailor. Called by a mermaid whose love was never returned. Called in hopes that claiming the children of the sailor would somehow quench her unrequited love.
Of course, I didn’t believe the old grandmother.
Mermaids aren’t real.
And my thoughts remained so until, one day, my husband’s pendant broke. We were on a boat on our lake when it happened. It was an accident. I didn’t mean for it to break. Once the glass broke, once the seaglass and sand fell from the vial, once the spell was broken, we heard it.
A soft song full of longing and sorrow, something so sad and so sweet came over the water. We both heard it. Only he answered it. I couldn’t save him.
Take heed, dear reader, and take note of your pendant. It may just be an ordinary pendant for you, if you were not born of the sailor’s bloodline. But I urge you not to dismiss the legend of the mermaids as I once did. Your life or the life of someone you love may depend upon it.